The Calgary Foundation is giving the Turner Valley Oilfield Society $30,000 to upgrade its outdated website, train board members in governance and improve its operations as a non-profit organization.
Board secretary Sharlene Brown said the training will provide the five-member board with the knowledge it needs to work alongside Alberta Culture and Tourism for summer tours at the Turner Valley Gas Plant and to tackle future oil and gas-related tourism initiatives.
“We are trying to revitalize the society,” said Brown, a board member for 15 years. “Part of the revitalization is to get standard operational procedures, board development and get the society ready for the next steps for the projects that we want to do.”
Brown said the 38-year-old society has 28 members. Most are new to the group and weren’t involved with working with the Province to hire tour guides and apply for grants before remediation work was done.
“A number of the current and previous members of the society are aged and the capacity of the board over time had dwindled, which is why we’ve now got the new members involved,” said Brown. “It is time for an overhaul of the society in itself.”
She said the board wants to be an integral part of future plans for the gas plant now that reclamation work and redevelopment is complete to open the site for tours.
The Turner Valley Oilfield Society has been working to preserve Turner Valley Gas Plant’s historical significance since it closed in 1982, as well as that of the surrounding oilfields which span from near Priddis to south of Longview, said Brown.
“We want to protect the historical integrity of that area,” she said. “The tours (at the Turner Valley Gas Plant) is an interpretation of Canada’s first oil and gas plant and producing oilfields, which is still producing today.”
Society board chairman Earl Martin said this will be the first time the board has had any formal training. Martin has been a member of the society since 1988 and on the executive since 2010.
Martin expects the training will give Alberta Culture and Tourism more confidence that the society can take on various functions, such as running tours at the plant.
“It will be a building process over a couple of years where we could perhaps start taking on some functions and hopefully with this strengthened board that we can execute an agreement with the department of culture and tourism,” he said.
The training will also help the group with delve further into projects its been considering to further educate the public about oil and gas in the region, said Martin.
The society has plans to revive a car tour of oil and gas sites that took place in the 1990s. The idea is to include historical markers, interesting geology and connections to oil and gas, including the gas plant itself, Martin said.
Rehabilitation began at the site in the 1990s and was complete in 2010.
During that time, the Province took a second look at developing the plant into a museum and interpretive site and in 2008 made the decision for forge ahead, said Martin.
A lack of funding put the government’s plans on hold for many years, but the site opened to the public in 2014 for a centennial celebration of the Dingman Discovery Well, offering tours on weekends throughout the spring and summer.
No scheduled tours took place last year while construction was underway on an office building to offer wheelchair accessible washrooms. Work was completed last winter to allow for the tours to return this summer.
More details about the Turner Valley Oilfield Society is available at hellshalfacres.com
